


She's Got You

by oolongteawithpudding



Category: MASH (TV)
Genre: Angst, Multi, Pining, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Post-War, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, but mostly pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-26
Updated: 2020-12-26
Packaged: 2021-03-11 05:47:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,807
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28346355
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oolongteawithpudding/pseuds/oolongteawithpudding
Summary: Hawkeye can't figure out why he isn't happy to go home.
Relationships: B. J. Hunnicutt/Peg Hunnicutt
Comments: 2
Kudos: 11





	She's Got You

The seats on the plane were surprisingly cushy. He bounced up and down just the slightest bit, careful not to draw too much attention to himself. He had been assigned the middle seat. He didn’t really mind, as long as he got home in one piece. He really should be happy to go home- ecstatic, even overjoyed, but all he could do was sit down, face forward, and wait for the plane to start moving. Seoul to Los Angeles, about 11 hours flight time. His uniform shirt was tight under his armpits, and it suddenly seemed to be very hot inside.

He’d sat next to the window on his flight from Boston Logan to Seoul. Of course, it didn’t matter much, since he spent the whole flight fighting back tears. There was one moment he’d never forget, though- looking out at the sun setting on that great, big cityscape, and mouthing a silent goodbye in case it was the last he saw of home. He couldn’t take his eyes off it, even past when it’d been obscured by clouds. He didn’t notice he’d barely blinked until his eyes started to sting. So, he blinked again, and blocked out the pain.

The man at the window seat now was just about asleep, his body slumped against the wall of the plane, dark bags under his eyes. Hawkeye didn’t even want to think about what could’ve made him so weary. The man in the aisle seat was swapping tales with the guy across from him. The whole plane was abuzz. That was only natural, Hawk thought, as he unbuttoned his jacket and placed it under the seat in front of him. They wanted to get home. He thought of Crabapple Cove, his father, the fishing pier, the backyard maple tree… God, would it have grown in the time he was gone? Normally, a thought like that would upset him, but his brain was still made of cotton and petroleum jelly.

Soon, the plane started taxiing, earning a few cheers from the men. When it came to a halt at the start of the runway, Hawkeye silently braced himself for the upcoming g-force impact. He looked out the window. He couldn’t see anything but strange lights in the dark. The lights passed him by faster, and faster, until the front wheels lifted off into the air. With shock, he realized that this was his last moment on Korean soil- and then they were airborne.

He couldn’t breathe. His heart felt like it was being squeezed to a slow death. The man to the left was somehow already fast asleep, and the man to the right was showing his buddy pictures. What did they have that Hawkeye didn’t? Happiness? A sound mind? Who could _have_ a sound mind after this sick war? Most of all, he envied the man sleeping. He probably had no idea how lucky was to even be able to achieve sleep. The best Hawkeye could hope for was a nap now and then, or an hour or so of lying in bed while the world turned to a milky white haze. He wasn’t about to guess why it'd gotten that much worse. It was just going to happen to him, like everything else.

The next 10 hours were hell. His chest burned and squeezed, and his body ached like it was on fire. He listened to the aisle seat soldier’s conversation, but he didn’t retain a single word. He didn’t realize the sleeping man was snoring until the seventh hour. He hated him. The lights had been turned off, and Hawk had tried closing his eyes a few times, but every time, he would be woken up by an accidental shoulder brush, or someone talking a little too loudly. How could he close his eyes when there was just too much going on? Besides, he always had to be prepared. What if somebody had a heart attack? He’d heard of it happening before. Even though he was out of the Army, he was still a doctor.

He was fidgeting with a piece of paper. Blank note paper, torn out of the book and torn along the edges in little methodical fringes. When had he pulled that out of his bag? No, that had come out of his coat pocket… sometime in the third hour. Was his memory going to shit, now, too? He let out a sigh. He didn’t know the time, even though he distinctly remembered checking his watch not five minutes earlier. He checked again. Now he knew they were almost done. Almost landing. He wished they wouldn’t.

What the hell was wrong with him? It wasn’t like he had any attachment to Korea. He hated every rock, every blade of grass, every land mine in the place. But, apparently, he loved it so much he couldn’t even stir up happy thoughts of home. The only thing close to love he felt for all the surgery he’d done was relief, and just the tiniest bit of hope so as not to get himself too optimistic. What was so important it could render him nonchalant about home? That question had been churning inside his head since the day he left, mixing with that slippery cotton to make some kind of sick, demented ice cream.

He closed his eyes again, and he must have been asleep for at least a few minutes because he snapped awake from the sound of the captain’s announcement that they were beginning their descent. He looked out the window, but he couldn’t see anything except clouds and ocean. Even the sleeping man was awake, eyes glued to whatever was out the window. The man on Hawkeye’s right had already packed away all his cards and his book (the man had been playing cards and reading- another thing Hawkeye forgot he remembered) and was sitting up straight, his jacket already on and buttoned.

“You meeting family?” Hawkeye asked.

The man turned to him with a smile, beaming but nervous. “Yeah, my wife and my little girl.”

He dug into his pocket and pulled out a picture of a young woman and a little blonde toddler. The little girl looked just like Erin. Erin.

The man tucked the photo back into his pocket.

“What about you? You got family?” he said.

“Me? Uh, uh,” Hawkeye squeezed his eyes shut, and put his head on straight. “Yeah. I mean, not here, but I’m meeting my dad up in Maine.”

“Wow, I’ve never been that far up north.”

It felt as if the cotton in Hawkeye’s head was steadily expanding as they made meaningless chatter. Hawkeye told the man (whose name he learned was Cpl. Bob Gillis) all about ice fishing and medical school. Bob told him about his wife (Alice) and daughter (Sue) and Hawkeye tried not to think about how familiar their conversation was starting to sound. Hawkeye glanced toward the window, and then did a double take. He tapped Bob’s shoulder.

“Look! It’s the coast!” he exclaimed.

Bob craned his neck and looked at the abstract landmass that was showing itself in between the clouds. He looked around the plane in bewilderment, his eyes wide and his mouth open. He looked out the window again, and started laughing.

“I-I didn’t think I’d see it again!” he said, his voice breaking.

Hawkeye gave him a pat on the shoulder. “God knows we came close.”

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Bob gave him a quick wave before practically sprinting to the waiting area. It was like something out of a movie- Bob dropped his bags, picked up his daughter, and gave his wife a long, slow kiss. As Hawkeye walked by, he could hear Bob and his wife were both crying. Hawkeye sighed, and walked on. He had to get to wherever his Boston flight was departing by the next hour. The airport was busier than he’d ever seen it, but then again, he’d only flown when it had something to do with the war. He didn’t intend to do it any more than he had to. Planes were nothing but loud hotboxes of cigarette smoke.

He looked around at the people beside him. Well-coiffed stewardesses walking briskly down the halls, men in military uniforms laughing with their families, a janitor on his smoking break… it all looked different somehow. When he’d first been drafted, he’d been one of them, just another man in civvies, dressed up in a tie and slacks to look presentable, but that had all gone to hell. He wasn’t like them anymore. He responded to shouts of “Capt. Pierce!” or “Hawkeye!” better than he did to his own name. Ben. It sounded alien.

When he found his terminal, he chose a seat facing the coffee shop, with his back to those great big floor-to-ceiling windows. He didn’t even want to look at California. He didn’t want to wonder where B.J. had met Peg and Erin. He put his head in his hands, but it didn’t stop him from seeing their faces swirling around, B.J. grinning, kissing Peg, holding Erin. He tried to shove their faces into some dark void, but new images just kept coming. He opened his eyes, threw his duffel bag over his shoulder, and headed toward the liquor and tobacco shop.

The prices were duty-free, but they were still more expensive than he expected. He figured one bottle of gin was enough to get him through the journey, and bought some scotch whiskey for his dad. At checkout, he bought some drinking glasses, too, since a man drinking gin straight from the bottle in the middle of the airport would probably raise some eyebrows. He didn’t savor it when he got back to his seat, anyway. The faster it poured down his gullet the better. The faster he could be out of California the better. He sat back down in his seat, watching people buy cups of coffee. With resignation, he knew if he looked out that window too long (or at all) he’d be tempted to run out of the airport and hitch a taxi straight to Mill Valley. He knew it couldn’t come to that. He knew it wouldn’t, anyway.

Bits of B.J. began flooding back as he drank shot after shot. The way his smile remained innocent throughout the years. The way he could pull off the perfect prank without so much as a mischievous smirk. The way his tears could break your heart in two. B.J. was so bright, so human… Hawkeye really shouldn’t be thinking about him as if he were dead. He had a life. They just couldn’t have it together. Then, it was time to fly to Boston.

If this were a couple years prior, Hawkeye would’ve felt the same pain landing in Boston. Instead, Hawkeye glued himself to Logan airport’s window, looking for that Citgo sign Trapper had talked about. He couldn’t find it over all the buildings, but that didn’t matter. He knew Trapper was there, doing God-knows-what, probably orthopedic surgery. Thinking about him still produced a dull ache in the middle of his torso, which didn’t go too well with his squeeze-ball heart and churning stomach. He took another shot all the same.

Hawkeye spent the next couple hours sharing drinks with a couple Marines, flirting with the cashier at the newspaper stand, and knitting. Everything was fine. He couldn’t jump out and run to Mill Valley anymore- he’d be winded before he would even reach Connecticut. Well, at least B.J.’s face wasn’t appearing in his head every two seconds. He was pretty sure the news stand lady wanted to fuck him. He went to pour out another drink for courage, but the bottle was empty. Those Marines must’ve drank a lot.

He ended up giving the woman his number (was her name Diana? Deanna?) but he doubted it would come to anything. All the same, he was disappointed. She could’ve been quite the distraction. God knows he needed one. He hoped Crabapple Cove would at least be somewhat the same. The fact that small towns usually change slower than big cities used to annoy him, but the war had a funny way of changing one’s mind about things. He bought another bottle of gin ten minutes before boarding.

This plane was smaller than the other ones, but it made sense since not many G.I.'s were heading toward Bangor, ME. He shared some more of his gin with his seatmates, and talked to the guy in front of him about sledding for just about the entire flight. He listened to more stories about wives, sons, and daughters with a sad smile. None of them talked about the war. Maybe that was why everyone was so happy. They made themselves forget.

When Hawkeye finally got to hug his dad, he felt everything in his body go limp, wet tears streaming down his face. He didn’t even know how he could produce tears when he felt so numb. Daniel cried, too, holding onto Hawkeye like he’d never let him go. They went home in the Studebaker, the terrain getting more and more mountainous as they got closer to home. Hawkeye’s heart beat faster when he saw the first sign for Crabapple Cove, but still no emotion accompanied it. The cotton and petroleum jelly were alive and well in his brain, stopping up a faucet full of images of B.J. smiling and Margaret laughing.

Daniel knew better than to ask about Korea. Instead, he told Hawkeye about what he’d missed. How the ’54 seniors had mown four-letter words into the football field, the lobster harvest, the electrical fire at the Italian bistro, and the new family that moved in the next street over. Apparently, they’d redone that abandoned house, painted it blue, and tacked on a garage big enough for two cars. Hawkeye had liked that old house. He’d written his name on the walls before having his first kiss with Jimmy Collins. It hadn’t been their last, either. Well, at least Hawkeye would be at peace with the fact that that family was making their good, Christian home in the walls of Crabapple Cove’s former palace of fornication.

Daniel continued, telling Hawkeye about all the patients of the Pierce family practice. Other than a couple of elderly, sick patients, everyone else was doing just fine. Apparently, Mrs. Donovan had popped out triplets a couple months prior. Even Daniel couldn’t handle that one, but she’d done just fine at a nearby hospital. Daniel laughed, recalling just how tiny all their little fingers were, but Hawkeye was silent. Even Maine’s monotonous, banal life had passed him by. He felt hollow. Daniel asked if he was alright, and he told him he’d never been better.

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Hey, dad?” Hawkeye approached him.

Daniel put his spatula down and faced his son. “Yeah?”

“Do you want any of my old Army clothes, or should I donate them to the Goodwill?”

“I guess I could use a t-shirt or two.” Daniel said.

“You don’t mind that they’re green?” asked Hawkeye.

“Nah. Aren’t you keeping anything?”

Hawkeye shrugged. “I’m keeping most of my books, and probably my boots. They’ll be useful once it’s winter.”

Daniel smiled. “Well, I’m glad you’re going through that stuff.”

Hawkeye smiled back, and walked up the stairs to his old room. It had been almost two weeks- he really needed to rent an apartment some time or another, get out of his childhood bed. He approached his former toy chest, and opened it, revealing his duffel bag, hidden out of sight. He sighed, bracing himself, even though he knew it was just clothes and miscellaneous knickknacks. He lifted it onto his bed, and zipped it open. The smell immediately struck him. He had no idea how different Korea smelled compared to Maine. The spigot turned on, full force, dousing him with thoughts of Klinger, Blake, Potter, Margaret, B.J., Frank, everyone. It felt like he left them all in Korea. He yearned desperately to go back, just to have another day with them, just to make sure he said everything he needed to.

Hawk buried his head in his hands, a couple tears escaping his eyes. He just needed to get this over with. He decided the Goodwill pile would go next to the door. He grabbed a pair of pants, and threw them over. As he was reaching for a green t-shirt for his dad, he noticed something. His hand wrapped around a cold, metal rectangle, bringing it out of the mass of unfolded clothes. He glanced down. It was a little picture frame, with B.J., Peg, and Erin, all smiling up at him. He placed it on his nightstand, tears falling down his face and landing on his thighs. Maybe it was okay to remember.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope yall enjoyed! This was a difficult one. I'm open to any and all feedback, or you can visit my tumblr (oolongteawithpudding.tumblr.com) and talk to me there. Any comments will make my day


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